Lucas Debargue’s interpretations are known for their emotional depth and intellectual rigor—and his affinity for literature and philosophy is never far from his music. In this conversation, we asked him five questions about Maurice Ravel, whose music he has performed widely and whose artistic world resonates deeply with his own.
The biggest challenge performing Ravel’s music, I would say, is to hold the line, to never lose the thread despite all the patterns, all the decoration.
Always hold the line—the beautiful melody.
Learn more about challenge and constraint in Ravel’s music here.
Apparently my performance ten years ago in the Tchaikovsky Competition in 2015 was something special for many people. For me, it was special for other reasons, as an inner experience.
I think it’s always funny to see that there is what you do, really, as a musician, as an artist—and there is how you get perceived. What happened for me during this Tchaikovsky Competition was an encounter with the audience. And I think that the role of my interpretation wasn’t actually so big.
Relive Lucas Debargue’s Gaspard de la nuit at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition.
Of course, I play this piece today in concert—I would do everything differently. And to be honest, I don’t think I played it very well in the competition!It’s very funny because today I think I play Gaspard de la Nuit much better—and nobody talks about it. But at that moment, there was just an encounter between the piece, myself, and the audience. And it was the right moment.
Lucas Debargue plays Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit Gaspard de la nuit at the Fondation Singer-Polignac in 2020, 5 years after his performance at the Tchaikovsky Competition.
I associate Ravel with many writers and poets.
Paul Verlaine’s Little Book,Les Poètes maudits is a collection of poets from the late 19th century like Tristan Corbière or Jules Laforgue. I associate Ravel with the decadent French poet Joris-Karl Huysmans—with the novel À rebours. Villiers de l’Isle-Adam and Les Contes cruels. And of course, Paul Morand with his first poem Lampes à arc. And what is funny is that the last piece Ravel wrote is Les Chants de Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, on poems by Paul Morand.
I think that Ravel speaks to the child in all of us. He actually manages to catch this very intimate part of our souls. It’s quite magical—he was kind of a sorcerer or a wizard, catching the inner child in all of us.
Boléro.
Most of my friends are not interested in classical music in general—they think that it’s reserved to rich, old, far-right people. Which is not completely wrong for a large part of the audience, I can only say, “Yeah, I’m very sorry for this.” But I would choose to have them listen to Boléro because this piece is something that makes someone say that Ravel was visionary.
I don’t like the word “visionary” because it would mean that somebody planned in advance that something would happen in the future and I’m not sure that Ravel would have expected his Boléro to become such a thing, honestly. But now, because of our ears, because of what our world became…
The fact that this piece is obsessional, repetitive, on a loop—it looks very much like some techno or electro music, with more layers added, and a great crescendo. If I see one of my friends going to nightclubs and taking drugs to get high with some sort of crazy techno music—I think that with Boléro they would feel quite familiar with what’s going on there, and maybe get interested in other Ravel pieces after that.
Learn more on the Boléro and explore different versions available to watch on medici.tv.
